


State Secrets

by Tibby



Category: Cambridge Spies, Lucifer Box - Mark Gatiss
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-14
Updated: 2010-06-14
Packaged: 2017-10-10 03:04:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tibby/pseuds/Tibby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Guy Burgess suffers the after-effects of a lycanthropic transformation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	State Secrets

In my line of work, I often encounter familiar faces in the most unlikely locations. In fact, it's all become a little bit predictable over the years. Seeing a highly respected politician dishing out Satanic rites has come to rival filling out a tax return in terms of pure, mind-numbing tedium.

Sometimes it's quite refreshing to find someone exactly where everybody expected them to be. Which is perhaps why it was such a pleasant surprise to find my old acquaintances Mr. Anthony Blunt and Mr. Guy Burgess on the floor of a Hyde Park lavatory.

It was early on a Monday morning and, no, I can't reveal what brought me to the place. Let's just say that certain parties asked me, very politely, not to let that information out for another fifty years, minimum. Or that nature called. You can choose for yourself based on what prospect thrills you more. I had not arranged to meet Mr. Blunt or Mr. Burgess. Yet, there they were, and anyone else who I may have wished to see was not. I was in quite a hurry to remove myself from the place, especially when I noticed that I'd trodden in Mr. Burgess' vomit. Still, mother taught me some manners so I wished them good day.

Anthony Blunt caught my trouser leg before I could walk away.

Despite his obvious reluctance to let me go, he didn't look at all pleased to see me. We had only met once or twice before this occasion and that had been enough for both of us. He thought my painting was superficial and gaudy with no signs of maturing; I thought he was a snobbish, bitter queen. To be honest, we probably have a multitude of similarities, but I am a sensitive soul. So wounded was I by his harsh criticism that I might just have helped along a few rumours about his socialist days at university.

However, that's not part of the story I'm trying to tell. At that moment he was holding onto my trousers and crouched over the unconscious body of Guy Burgess, who was looking more worse for wear than I believed was possible. And let me tell you, I have never been shy of nights of debauchery.

"Been mixing his drinks?" I asked, forced, I felt, to make some attempt at conversation.

"He'd had nothing but a gin and that was at seven o'clock last night, if you must know," said Anthony Blunt, "Why don't you do something useful and help me move him?"

As loath as I was to spoil a perfectly good suit, I helped him. We managed to carry the wretch to a nearby bench. This was all seeming an eerily familiar state of affairs. My first meeting with young Burgess had been in a park lavatory and after that, a park bench. If things followed the pattern, we'd be back in the lavatory in, say, ten minutes. But Burgess had been conscious that other time and had smelt considerably better.

Even in such a foul state, Burgess had the disconcerting talent of looking absolutely angelic when asleep. Apparently he'd been very handsome when at Cambridge. I could tell that Blunt was thinking something similar. But whereas with me it was a quick glance and a fleeting thought, Blunt's eyes lingered on his friend with affectionate exasperation. I might have known there was something going on there, really.

I reached for a cigarette and graciously offered one for Blunt. I even lit it for him which just goes to show what a saint I am. Forgive and forget comes quite naturally to one, when anybody one has to forgive is quickly too dead to give further offence. I hadn't even been ordered to shoot to kill in the case of Blunt.

"How did he get so cut up?" I asked, striking the match. The congealed blood on Burgess probably made the wounds look worse than they really were but he'd still taken quite a beating. His clothes, in places, had been torn.

"He had a rough night," was all that Blunt would say.

"Yes, but you said he hadn't even been drinking. What…?"

"Thank you, Mr. Box," Blunt said brusquely. If he'd had feathers, they would have ruffled. He continued, just as peevishly, "Feel free to go now, won't you? Or, if you want to help, you could find us a cab."

I was only too happy to leave. The only thing I was sorry to give up was the intriguing mystery. Burgess even looked different. Perhaps it was the quality of the morning light. I allowed myself one last look before walking away. It seemed to me that his hair looked unusually downy at the temples and his teeth… There was something in his teeth as he took a long, straggling breath. They seemed quite strangely sharp and pointed.


End file.
